ANTOINE Van Der Linden was left to rue a glorious chance that could have secured victory for his side.

Not for the first time this season the big Dutch central defender was used as an attacking substitute by Andy King.

With only four minutes left, Van Der Linden hammered a close range shot over the top.

He said: "I should have done better with the effort but it fell on my right foot rather than the left and unfortunately for us its gone over the top.

The Town substitute felt his side should have had the points wrapped up long before his scoring opportunity.

He said: "We got an early goal which really should have given us a boost but for some reason it didn't.

"I think we played better in the second half but just couldn't score."

He said no-one at the club was giving up the fight.

Van Der Linden said: "There are a lot of teams that can still go down. But we need to concentrate on our own game rather than worrying about others."

Full back Mark Robinson also felt Town had dropped two points.

He said: "It was a dream start but we never built on it.

"I thought we dominated the second half but didn't really create chances.

"We didn't put enough quality balls into the box."

Danny Invincible was another disappointed figure at the end of the Northampton encounter.

He said: "We just kept giving the ball away. We seemed slow to react although it picked up a bit in the second half.

"We didn't look confident, we didn't have composure on the ball and we seemed to just sit back and let them come at us.

"It just looked flat all over the pitch."

Skipper Alan Reeves said: "The first half we looked a bit apprehensive on the ball. The goal seemed to make us more apprehensive.

"We were quite comfortable in the second half without really creating too much.

"If we had been halfway up the league like Northampton then we'd have probably got the ball down and played a bit more but knowing we need points added that little bit of edginess to the game.

"We have to forget the first half of the Northampton game and quickly get back to the way we were playing before, like against Reading."